Illinois vs. Michigan St. Pregamearama

There will be no flag planting in Champaign tonight. That isn't a prediction, that's more about the physics of spiking a flag into the hardwood. Illinois comes in as the underdog, even in the friendly atmosphere of Assembly Hall. This is indicative of how this Illini team is playing right now.

The main key to the offense is to get it down low early and often to Pruitt and Carter. Illinois did that in the first half at Sparty and ended up with an 11 point lead. They went away from that in the second half and Michigan St. struck, let by Drew Neitzel.

And that will be the defensive key to the game: limiting Neitzel, especially in the second half. He put 20 on Ohio St. in the second half of that game in Columbus and nearly ended up bringing them back for the win.

Illinois hasn't lost both sides of a home/away series in Big Ten play since 1998-1999. Let's hope this doesn't start a new trend.

Illinois 61

Michigan St. 60

Illini Look to Avenge Early Season Loss (Daily Illini)

Cribs: Illini Style

Okay, we got a new hamster and it's time to break out the Cristal at the home of Juice Williams and Chris James. This incredible mansion...what? What's that? Oh...it's not? Oh.

Sorry folks, I forgot this isn't USC. Juice and CJ instead live in one of the bland prisons with windows known as the dorms. SI on Campus did a feature on them for their Cribs feature and this is actually not the first time SI's little bro has been on campus. Last semester SI on Campus featured a house occupied by 8 members of the women's soccer team. It seems Courtney Linehan of DI sports writing fame has them smitten at the SI spin-off. It's a fun read with a little insight into the personal lives of two of the top football players on campus and a nice reminder that they're students just like everyone else.

Sports Illustrated Campus Cribs (SI on Campus)

Tapes May Implicate Reggie Bush (Washington Post)

Hammy! Nooooo!

This is Hammy, he runs the servers around my domicile. Well, apparently, he is either pre-occupied with fending off Richard Gere or he's passed into the great beyond. Either way, I'm having trouble on the internets today, so hopefully I can clear the tubes and be back with an update later.

Risque Business (Snopes)

Somewhat Breaking News: Zook Hires New Offensive Line Coach

This curly haired gentlemen will now be teaching the big burly offensive line how to push people around. His name is Eric Wolford and Ron Zook named him the offensive line coach today. Looks like he has a pretty good record and he has a good Illini line to work with (the run game last year managed to get some excellent run blocking). He'll have to work on the outside linemen and teach them to pick up the blitz. Juice can work on throwing against the blitz, but there's only so much he can do in one off-season (or any off-season for that matter). He's going to need improved blocking to go along with his improved receiving core.

So, let's all welcome Eric to the mediocrity that is Illinois football.

Wolford Hired as Offensive Line Coach (FightingIllini.com)

Playing in the Sand with Illini Track

Both the Illini Men's and Women's teams captured victories over the weekend inside the armory at the Carle/Health Alliance Invite. The teams did it in impressive fashion as well, with both teams beating the second place team (Middle Tenn. Men's and Iowa Women's) by healthy margins in their respective meets.

For the men's team, this was a show for the younger athletes that dominate the roster. Freshmen and Sophomores were responsible for victories in the 600 meter run, the 800 meter run, high jump and pole vault. The teams also registered a victory in the triple jump. the distance medley and the 4x400. This meet was a small one for the Illini, who dominated the competition. However, this isn't a bad thing for a young team still trying to build some confidence. Even though track is composed of individual events, the team morale is important to the confidence of these individual athletes.

On the women's side, the Illini were anchored by performances of upperclassmen, especially Yvonne Mensah. Mensah took first in the 60 meter dash, the 200 meter dash and the long jump. Other Illini took victories in the Pole Vault, the 3,000 meters and swept the mile run. Again, on the women's side, this was a meet they dominated due to sure size of the team over the competition.

The Illini men travel to South Bend next weekend for the Meyo Invitational, while the women will travel to Bloomington first for the Indiana Invitational before heading to South Bend.

Practice Lessons Pave Way for Meet Win (DailyIllini)

Intensity Fuels Track Victory (DailyIllini)

Purdue 64 Illinois PW3D

Yeah, it was that kind of day for the Illini. The Illini got down huge to begin the game when Purdue went on a 21-0 run and never really got close the rest of the way out. Whenever they put together a run, Purdue would answer. The biggest example of this is David Teague hitting a 30 foot bankshot in the second half as the shot clock expired. It was just a demoralizing loss all around.

The most embarrassing thing about the loss, and I hate to say this, was Chester Fraizer. That kid is a firecracker and everything I usually love about a player. He's hard nosed, he dives into the crowd and he reminds me of a shorter version of my all-time favorite Illini, Lucas Johnson. The problem is that Chester is a point guard and when opposing players leave him at the three point line like he's Dikembe Mutumbo (you know, without the hospital and school building), then there is a problem. A guard needs to be able to get the shot in the vicinity of the hoop when left that wide open from three. It's just the way the game is played. Chester needs to find the range or Illinois might have to substitute offense and defense (where that offense would come from is another very real problem).

I'd like to think this is like the 03-04 season and Illinois will go undefeated the rest of the way out and get to the top of the Big Ten standings. But this team doesn't have that kind of talent or that kind of confidence. I'll go ahead and say it: NIT, two games and out.

That's not to say I'm not going to stick around and watch all this. I love Illinois through good and bad. And this is definitely bad.

Boilermakers Dampen Illinois Tourney Hopes (DailyIllini)

And That Wraps Up the Week

Well, that's the end of the first week of this little blog experiment. To my few readers out there, thanks for checking it out and I hope you stick around. Remember, I've got a tips link on the right side there if any of you have anything to say.

Coming Monday: Another Club Hockey Post, Men's basketball recap and more.

What to see in C-U this weekend

Women's Tennis vs Notre Dame at Atkins Tennis Center - 6 p.m. Friday

Club Hockey vs. Depaul on the Big Pond - 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday

Women's Gymnastics vs. Iowa 7 p.m. Saturday

Men's Gymnastics vs. Ohio St. 7 p.m. Saturday

Men's and Women's Track - Meet starts noon Saturday

Women's Basketball vs. Northwestern - 2 p.m. Sunday

Women's Tennis vs. Tennessee - 12 p.m. Sunday

Have a Good Weekend Everyone!

Illini Weekend Schedule (FightingIllini.com)

Illinois at Purdue Pre-Gamearama

Illinois treads into Purdue looking for some sort of consistency and a little respect. Following their first win against a Top 25 team on Tuesday, most every piece of press credited the win to Indiana's poor shooting and some luck by Illinois to catch them on such a night. Saturday gives Illinois the opportunity to prove them wrong against a struggling Purdue team. A convincing win in West Lafayette could give the Illini the shot of positive press that they need.

This will be Illinois' only shot at the Boilermakers, so a win will be vital in their push to get into the top half of the conference. It will also be necessary to give Illinois an improved road record, where the Illini are 1-2 one month into the conference season.

Pruitt and Carter are going to need to come up big for the Illini in this one. Not only in the scoring column but also on the boards. Once Illinois establishes a presence inside, they'll be able to open it up on the wings and let Rich McBride continue his good shooting of the past few weeks.

This will be the first sell out game of the year at Mackey Arena, and Purdue is going to feed off that increased energy. They feel the key to their game is to match the intensity of the Illini. Coach Painter will probably be driving home the point to crash the glass against an Illini team that does not shoot well, but does crash the offensive glass.

In a game between former Saluki coaches, Weber has the upper hand.

Prediction

Illinois 58

Purdue 54

Illinois Seeks Important Road Win (DailyIllini)

Boilers Face Well-Rounded Illini Attack (The Exponent)

Around the Big Ten

What other schools are saying about this weekend's match-ups in men's hoops:

Michigan at Indiana

Michigan

From The Michigan Daily: Michigan (4-2 Conference, 16-5 Overall) is coming off a 71-58 road loss to Wisconsin. The road doesn't get any easier when they travel to Bloomington on Saturday, a place where they haven't won since 1996. Coach Amaker had this to say,

"Listen, we are in the middle of the conference race," Amaker said after Wednesday's loss. "We came here in second place (in the Big Ten), and we're going to be fine. Just because we didn't play well tonight, we aren't ready to tank our basketball team. We aren't. We are going to go back and compete. We're going to go to Bloomington and see if we can get a win there."

That sounds like a coach of a team who hasn't made the NCAA tournament in nine years. A win at Indiana would give them a shot of confidence they're going to need to make the tournament field.

Indiana

From The Indiana Daily Student: One of the biggest worries facing the Hoosiers (4-2 Conference, 14-5 Overall) coming into this game has been the rebounding differential. One of Coach Sampson's points of emphasis early in the season was rebounding, something Indiana did effectively through much of the non-conference schedule. But over the last three games (2-1), all three times the Hoosiers have lost the battle of the offensive boards, and twice have lost the battle of the overall boards. This might account for a drop in offensive production over the course of the Big Ten schedule.

Indiana has not lost consecutive games this season.


Game Time: 11 a.m. Central Saturday
Television: ESPN

Penn St. at Minnesota

Penn St.

From The Daily Collegian: In a battle at the bottom of the Big Ten, Penn St. (1-5 Conference, 10-9 Overall) is looking to their big game player Geary Claxton to get a victory in The Barn. The Lions will also be looking to sophomore Milos Bogetic, who had a break-out game in a loss at Iowa with 13 points and 6 rebounds. Coming into the game, Penn St. is riding a five game losing streak. One of the biggest contributors to this slide has been the Lions defense. They rank last in scoring defense in the Big Ten.

Minnesota

The Minnesota Daily: Minnesota (1-5 Conference, 7-13 Overall) has been trying to take moral victories away from games during the season. However, they're hungry for an actual win against Penn. St. The Gophers' leading scorer Lawrence McKenzie had this to say:

"I think game-by-game things will get better, but it comes to a point where you want to win games," he said. "It comes to the point where moral victories aren't going to be good enough."

Minnesota ranks last in the Big Ten in scoring offense. So this looks to be a match-up of who can step up the worst facet of their game.

Game Time: 11:15 a.m. Saturday
Television: ESPN Full Court

Michigan St. at Ohio St.

Michigan St.

From The State News: MSU (4-2 Conference, 17-4 Overall) has won at four in a row in Columbus, but getting the W this time is going to be a tall order, brought to them in part by Greg Oden. Junior Drew Neitzel, while looking forward to playing against Oden, also believes that MSU has to be willing to change its game plan on the fly to beat the Buckeyes. A separate storyline involves Coach Tom Izzo facing off against the recruit he passed on, Greg Oden. Izzo passed on Oden when he realized that Greg was probably going to jump straight to the NBA (decision made prior to age rule) or just stay one year and jump. He admits now that this was a mistake.

MSU is the last team to win in Columbus.

Ohio St.

From The Lantern: To say Greg Oden is well liked over at OSU is to say that it's been a few years since the Cubs won the World Series (editor's note: I'm a Cubs fan). He's so well liked in fact, that the OSU student paper wrote two articles about Oden instead of putting in an MSU pre-game article. But I guess that isn't necessary, as OSU is the site of College Gameday for the week. For more coverage than you've ever wanted about a top 5 team versus an unranked team, tune into ESPN Saturday morning.

Game Time: 8 p.m. Saturday
Television: ESPN2

Wisconsin at Iowa

Wisconsin

From the Badger Herald: Wisconsin (6-0 Conference, 20-1 Overall) comes into Sunday's game in the driver's seat of the Big Ten conference one month into the season. They believe there are five keys to victory: 1) Limit Huluska's threes 2) Get Tucker involved early and often 3) Earn second chance points, 4) Find the X-Factor and 5) Finish the game

Now, those may all seem like obvious points, but Wisky doesn't have to do much to win this game. They're a very strong team going on the road into an arena that is not one of the toughest environments to play in when an Iowa team is down.

Iowa

From The Daily Iowan: Iowa (3-3 Conference, 11-9 Overall) is staying positive coming into a game against the league's top team. They see this as a chance to really put a great win on their tournament resume. Senior Mike Henderson will be the X-Factor in this game, with a few of his teammates predicting a break-out game for Henderson. It will be needed to get the win against the Badgers.

Iowa is carrying at twelve game home conference winning streak into this game, a Carver-Hawkeye Arena record.

Game Time: 12:05 Sunday
Television: CBS

Men's College Scoreboard (SI.com)

Delving into the Bloggosphere

You'll find while reading this blog that about half my references are going to be the Daily Illini. They're about the only source in print that will actually cover Illinois sports that don't involve Ron Zook and Bruce Weber. To thank them for their service to the paper, I'd like to point you to a blog started up by two former editors that focuses on student journalism around the state and around the country (and one day, the world!). Campusbyline.com is a good mix of humor and actual news. Aside from pimping my infantile blog, they've already covered subjects such as Army Fourth Mealing, Meth Use Coverage at EIU and this post on Parkour, which sums up most people's feeling on it:

I think Parkour is kind of cool, in a Batman/Spider-man/ninja sort of way. But I’m smart enough to know that jumping from high places is also what people do to kill themselves.

Well, I guess that is true except for people who actually are Batman, Spiderman or ninjas.

Your Source for Student Journalism (CampusByline.com)

It's Lady's Day!

There's a reason I decided to use this picture, and it's not just so the most mature among you could laugh about shots to the face. Female athletes are sometimes labeled not as tough as their male counterparts. Well, I can tell you the story is quite different from that. Girls are just as mean and fierce as male athletes, and that's why every Thursday will feature at least one post on women's sports here at the U of I. This week I'm talking about soccer.

The season ended last month in a Sweet 16 defeat for the Illini at the hands of Florida St., ending the best season in school history. However, two Illini still had to clear some room for hardware. The National Soccer Coaches Association named Junior Ella Masar to the second team and sophomore Emily Zuerrer to the third team. In addition, Masar was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year and Zurrer was named Co-Defensive Player of the Year.

The season's biggest news also came in the last month, as Masar was invited to the U.S. Under-21 training camp. She became just the second Illini to be named to the team, following in the footsteps 2004's Tara Hurless. Zurrer has also played on an international stage as a defender for the Canadian U-20 team. But...you know...it's Canada. The team was probably too busy being commie pinko liberals to win any games, eh.

Next season is looking bright for the Illini, as all but four of the current roster are coming back for the 2007 season, including the top two and three of the top five goal scorers. The only unexpected loss thus far was the announcement that Asst. Coach Dale Armstrong was leaving the program to be near family. In the mean time, the Illini will need to look for a temporary replacement to keep the team on its toes.

May I suggest Jon McGuirk?

Women's Players Earn All-American Honors (DailyIllini.com)

Masar Invited to U-21 Training Camp (FightingIllini.com)

I'm Talkin' Fuzzy Balls

Illinois tennis doesn't get a lot of press, which is unfortunate because it's one of the best D-1 level program the U of I has. Just four years ago they went 32-0 and won the national championship, something no team other than USC, Stanford, Georgia or UCLA had done since 1977. This year the team is already looking towards another championship.

Coming into opening weekend, the Illini were already ranked in the top 5 and ready to show no. 10 Pepperdine why. The Waves, however, are accustom to success of their own, having taken the national championship last year. The Illini, behind the junior class, took the season opening victory 4-3.

Said Coach Brad Dancer:

Pepperdine is a very talented team, and it was great to start the season with a victory over such a tough opponent. I was very impressed with our junior class, they stayed composed and level headed throughout their matches and came through in a big way for us. We still have a lot of work to do, but we can build on this win and only get better as the season progresses.

The junior class is impressive indeed, boasting the number 11 and number 23 singles players in the country. So, let's review:

Talented Juniors

Second Year Head Coach

Top 5 Early Ranking

Hmm...this seems to remind me of a certain Illinois team from 2004-2005. Of course I don't want to get unreasonably optimistic, after all, my major knowledge of tennis comes from playing it on the Wii. But maybe, just maybe, another championship trophy will come home to the Atkins Tennis Center.

No. 5 Illinois Topples No. 10 Pepperdine (Fightingillini.com)

Wii Carnage (Wiihaveaproblem)

Your Illini Club Hockey Update

Ah hockey, the excuse to yell things at people who have sharp weapons at their disposal without the fear of repercussions. Illini club hockey in particular is a pretty good outlet for that new gay joke you've been dying to try out, as the Harassing Illini can attest to on Friday and Saturday nights. Chants of "It's all your fault" "You suck" and "[goalie's name] likes little boys" ring out during this family friendly sport.

And that's why this writer could not think of a better way to spend a night on the Illinois campus.

Coming into last weekend's games against Iowa St., Illinois hockey was ranked number one in the ACHA poll. Iowa St. was close behind in the six spot and on a six game winning streak. Friday night's game was looking bleak early for the home team, with Iowa St. scoring in the first minute and chipping in a power play goal late in the first period to go up 2-0. Illinois dominated possession but couldn't light the lamp in either the first or second period, thus entering the third period still down two.

Then came the third period. Maybe the zamboni(ers? ists? meisters?) did an amazing job, maybe somebody drugged Iowa St.'s water bottles or maybe Iowa St. realized that their mascot is confusing as hell and it distracted them in the final period. Whatever it was, Illinois finally kicked it into gear.

Three goals, including the clincher with a little over two left in the game, lifted the Illini to a 3-2 victory on the Big Pond. The next night wasn't nearly as exciting, as Illinois swept the weekend series with a 3-0 win that brought them within two points of the Ohio Bobcats in CSCHL standings.

Next up? Depaul at home. For reference, it looks like their starting goalie's name is Jason.

Can you say Gayson? Awww yeah.

Hockey Remains Undefeated on Home Ice (Daily Illini)

The Harassing Illini (Home Page)

CSCHL Standings (CSCHL Standings)

Illinois 51 Indiana 43

Well color me surprised. Down early, Illinois kicked up the defense and held the Hoosiers scoreless for nearly the last six minutes of the second half to pull out the game. The 20 free throw attempts to Indiana's 6 didn't hurt either. Granted, Illinois' anemic free throw shooting was present, but the 13 free throws they actually made might have been the difference. Another difference maker was Pruitt, who played on that sore left knee and dumped in 13 points for the Illini. Rich McBride also came up big, hitting big threes back to back in the second half on his way 15 points in the game.

Early it looked like Jamar Smith, finally back in the starting line-up, had found his stroke. He buried his first three point attempt, but missed the remaining four he took. This sophomore slump has been a painful one to watch, because I really wanted Jamar to continue to be successful. That quick release and stroke last year was amazing to watch. The ankle injury continues to be cited for his shooting woes, and I can somewhat understand that reasoning, but he just doesn't have any confidence in his shot this year. Illinois is going to need for that to change down the stretch, they can't score 51 every game and expect to win.

The other story line, aside from the important conference basketball game, started with that cold pre-game "shake" between Weber and Sampson. Personally, I thought it was great. I hope Weber does that to him at Indiana in a few weeks with a joy buzzer.

At least Kelvin still has fans at IU.

Illinois 51 - Indiana 43 (ESPN.com)

Man, those Indiana Kids Start Early (FireCoachSampson.com)

Illinois Sports Blogging, Take Two

(Photo from CBSSportsline.com)

I set up a blog with a similar name to this in November of last year, but for some reason blogspot decided that while my account existed, I couldn't edit the blog I created. I think we all know who to blame for this.

Kelvin Sampson.

So that's why, tonight, I will root against him as a person as opposed to the usual reason that I would root against him, he's not Bruce Weber. Other people seem to be against him as well...I wonder why...

In any case, tonight is going to be a rough one for the Illini faithful. Illinois has already lost three home games this season, the most since 1998-1999 and a fourth loss to Indiana of all teams would be a salt shaker full in the wound. And if all that weren't bad enough, there's news today that the team might have to do it without Pruitt, who injured his knee late in the Wisconsin game on Saturday.

Prediction

Indiana 68 Illinois 64

Indiana at Illinois (ESPN.com)

Change of heart: Coveted Gordon jilts Illinois for Indiana (CBSSportsline.com)